A Child's Wants, An Adult's Regret
by MoonPrincess623
Summary: Six years after her journey through the Labyrinth, Sarah is being haunted by her best and worst decision. She wasn't what the Goblin King needed, a child who understood nothing, yet, years later, when she is the woman he needs, she's almost broken by the weight of the guilt and regret she feels at what she has done to him. Has time destroyed Sarah or made her ready for Jareth?


**Moon Says:** So, yeah, why do I do this to you? Or to me? Because something is wrong with me that's what. I don't know. I felt bittersweet today after thinking about what movie to watch with lunch. Then I remembered that I wanted to do a _Labyrinth_ piece and my own personal feelings toward Sarah. Yeah, she made the right choice for her and Toby by defeating the Goblin King, but for her _and_ the Goblin King? Still the right choice. Sarah was a child, and even though Jareth claimed he loved her, she didn't understand shit. And what Jareth needs, and Sarah too, is for both of them to grow up. The only problem is…she defeated the Goblin King, so how is she to return to him once they manage to change? Thus a good and bad choice.

 **Words** / **Pages** : 1542 /5

 **Written** / **Published** : 28 May 2015

Enjoy!

~A Child's Wants, An Adult's Regret~

 _I wonder what your basic for comparison is._

With a startled gasp, she woke up. Guilt, regret, all sorts of negative emotions run through her as she remembers, once again, of the worst but possible best decision she made in her life.

A paradox right there: the best and worse decision every made. How could this be possible? But everything was complicated and possible with him.

 _I move the starts for no one._

Sarah went straight for the bathroom. As per her nightly ritual, she splashed her face and went back to bed not able to sleep but forever thinking of the past.

A past she could not escape.

 _Just fear me, love me, and I will be your slave._

She was a stupid child. How could he want her? To want to be tied to her forever? She had done them both a favor as well as a hindrance. She had not understood the world. She had see it only in black and white.

 _You cowered before me, I was frightening. I have reordered time. I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for_ you. _I am exhausted from living up to your expectations._

She was blind, stupid, a child. She had no understanding of what this all meant. It was a game to her, but to the Underground? To the Goblin King? Now, she wouldn't be surprised if she had fucked up the Underground and the Labyrinth by winning.

Who could not want a man, a King, anyone who gave her _Everything you wanted I have done_?

Five years she had been tortured by the memories of the Underground. At first, it was only because she had been afraid he would return and take both her and Toby. For the first year, she had been afraid that she had missed something and Jareth would come back for them both. Then, when she grew up and started to see the world the way it truly is, Sarah's heart began to change.

Nightmares of things she couldn't have because she had been so stupid.

When she had realized her mistake and the solution to correcting it was time, which the Goblin King had nothing but, Sarah had begun to wish that he would come back for her.

Years past and she realized that just maybe her hastily spoken words had been everyone's undoing.

Sarah knew that the Goblin King did not lie; he may have twisted truth or left something out, but he did not lie to her. After all, he only wanted to please her for her loved her and wished for her to stay with him.

Sarah had been the first one he had done so much for, so she concluded that she was the only one he loved.

And she threw it in his face.

Like a child who was never satisfied.

She gets what she wants, only to want something else right after.

Sarah found out only too late that she had loved the Goblin King, but alas, hindsight and maturity was twenty-twenty.

It had taken her years to realize the mistake she had made, but even after, it had taken her a few more years to come to terms that this is the real world. You don't get second chances nor Happy Ever Afters.

You made decisions, and you have to live with the consequences.

And these consequences were regret and guilt eating away at her for the rest of her life. And it would never end.

Until Death.

~A Child's Wants, An Adult's Regret~

Sarah was just as good of an actor as her mother or possibly the best out there. The world thought she was whole, sane, and happy.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

She had given up fantasy as a punishment to herself. It was also an attempt at a balm on her soul.

It didn't work.

When you had an imagination like hers and had seen the truth, you can't just forget it.

And it hurt.

But that was the point. Even though it was the right choice to make to save Toby, it hurt so damn much and was a mistake. Even if it was better that a Goblin King didn't have a child as his master.

Disaster, right?

The second, or possibly first, punishment for herself was to stop calling her friends. For close to four years, she had stopped calling on those she had made friends with in the Labyrinth.

Another reminder of a good and bad decision. Of how saving someone could destory another.

Another lesson of how real life works.

Nothing is pretty, and everything is dirty and messy.

And love was the most damaging mess of all.

~A Child's Wants, An Adult's Regret~

During college, she had to take literature courses even if she was getting a business degree.

At three years, she had a flash of hope. Her Early World Literature professor decided to do the Greek Myths, and the one of Hades, the God of the Underworld, and his rape of Persephone, was a story that involved eating in Underworld and having to stay there.

She had eaten a peach, or at least parts of it. A few bites. So why did he not come back and get her? Demand that she stay with him? Jareth was all about rules. And her. He was so possessive of her, so why didn't' the use this as a way to make her stay?

Or, where was he now?

Did she ruin everything when she said _you have no power over me_?

Fuck was she such a child to think that everything was clear.

She had told the Goblin King he had no power over her…but was she wrong. If he still had no power over her, then why were her memories destroying her?

~A Child's Wants, An Adult's Regret~

Six years had passed, and the Underground was eating her alive more and more with each passing year.

Sarah kept up a good face, but she wasn't sure how long she could keep it up.

The Labyrinth was burying her alive, and the pain and panic was so bittersweet.

When Sarah returned to her apartment from work that night that marked the six year anniversary of her best and worst choice, she headed to the kitchen. It was only after she set down her bag on the counter that she noticed something was there. Something that shouldn't have been there since she had left her countertop clean and free of any and everything. Sarah didn't even let containers or anything on her counters.

What she saw on the counter caused her to have a panic attack.

It was a _peach_.

Not just any peach, but one with a few bites taken out of it.

The thing that drove her to her the hysterics was the fact that she wouldn't allow any peaches near her since her trip in the Goblin King's domain. Sarah was accurately sensitive to peaches—smell, taste, everything. It was as if she had a sixth sense if one was near her. It helped with her lie about how she was deathly allergic to peaches.

But this one she didn't sense or even really register until she had almost touched it.

"You don't like my gift, _precious_?" a silky male voice that had haunted her dreams interrupted her panic attack.

Sarah closed her eyes and counted to ten.

Even if this was a hallucination, which it _had_ to be because way after six years, she was going to completely break down.

This was it.

This was her breaking point.

Six years. She made it six years.

When she opened her eyes, the peach was gone.

If the peach caused her to go into a panic attack, not seeing it had Sarah curl into herself and, for the first time in four years, she cried for what she lost.

What she didn't expect was to have strong lithe arms wrap around her and hold her as she let her tears, her buried emotions for the past six years, out.

The voice was back, the one that haunted her, soothing her.

When she had cried all the tears that she could, she still felt the arms around her.

Was it real? Was _he_ real?

Or was he going to disappear?

Sarah turned around slowly and when she saw the man holding her, no, not man— _King_. _Fae—_ she almost broke down again.

His hair was still the same mess and all over the place. His eyes…one blue and one green. _Perfect._ All the same.

And this beautifully broken man was just like her. She could see it in his eyes. Six years had not treated him kindly.

But it hadn't her either.

"Don't leave me, please," she begged those eyes that had changed but hadn't really changed. They still begged her to love them, to accept them. "I want unfair. Because if fair is what these six years were…fuck fair."

Oh, to hear that chuckle again.

"Well, darling, even if I wanted to leave you hear to the world of fair," he teased, "I couldn't. you know I'm a stickler for rules. And rules says you eat in the Underground…"


End file.
